April 2016

04/19/2016

Recently, my best friend from home came to visit me in Denver. We explored Denver a little bit and I took him to all of my favorite restaurants nearby. During the weekend, we decided to go to the zoo [because apparently he had NEVER been to a zoo before???]! However, we decided to ditch the zoo in Denver and head down to CO Springs, where the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is located. This zoo is unique because unlike most zoos that expand horizontally, this one expands vertically. The zoo is literally built on the side of a mountain where walking through the zoo is moving uphill and downhill.

On the way to the zoo, we stopped at Garden of the Gods, a common tourist location and park full of staggering red rocks:

When we got to the zoo, we purchased tickets for not only the zoo but also for the chairlift to the top of the zoo. The approximately 8 minute chairlift took us over the entire park to a viewing area where we could see all of CO Springs. Here's a view from the lift:

The view from the very top:

After we got our share of awesome views, we headed back to the beginning of the zoo to walk through and see all the animals. They had all the normal animals you'd expect at a zoo, but also some added experiences such as being able to pet pygmy goats and feed lettuce to giraffes:

At the end of the day, we were exhausted from all the sightseeing and all the vertical trekking we did at high altitude. We headed back to Denver to take a good nap and then have a big dinner. For anyone who wants to go to the zoo but is tired of seeing the same things over and over, I'd recommend going to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, it's an experience that you won't regret!

The University of Denver tends to be a pretty quiet campus. While student activism occurs, we rarely make the news for huge sit-ins or major protests. However, Divest DU is on the path to change that. Last week, Divest DU presented in front of the DU Board of Trustees to discuss the university pulling out its investments from major fossil fuel companies. The goal of the group is to fight "for climate justice by urging the University of Denver to end its unethical investment in the fossil fuel industry."

This particular meeting was held in the special events room in the main library. Over a hundred students showed up, some who weren't even active members of divest DU. The students and the faculty both discussed their perspectives and how we can improve the university as a whole.

Here are some photos of the event (taken from the Divest DU Facebook page):

In the upcoming weeks, DU Debate is also scheduled to help out with Divest DU. The team is holding a debate in a couple days where the debate students will objectively debate the two sides and present the hard facts and evidence. Instead of just presenting the main points that Divest DU are presenting (climate change and delegitimization), the debate team will also engage in moral ideas and ideas from the faculty side such as how divest might affect scholarships and the alternatives to investing in fossil fuel companies.

The University of Denver is home to a group of talented and intelligent individuals. Divest DU is only one of many student activism groups on campus that work towards the greater good. Stay tuned for some big upcoming events!

04/03/2016

This week, a couple other RAs and I hosted a yoga social in the ballroom. We invited an instructor in to teach the class and all students were encouraged to participate. At 6:30 on Thursday, a couple other students and I gathered in the Towers ballroom for the class.

Our turnout wasn't as great as we hoped, but we still had a lot of fun. We worked on breath control and stretches and also worked out our core. At the end, we held a raffle for some sweet water bottles and DU t shirts. Here's a photo of us at the end of the class:

Yoga can benefit your body in many ways:

Increased flexibility.

Increased muscle strength and tone.

Improved respiration, energy and vitality.

Maintaining a balanced metabolism.

Weight reduction.

Cardio and circulatory health.

Improved athletic performance.

Protection from injury.

At DU, we have multiple yoga and pilates classes that students can take for free. They are all offered at the Ritchie Center which is a close walk from most of the dorms. Students here should monopolize off of the opportunities that DU offers to better their health and get in some workouts/new skills!

I didn’t have the opportunities to explore computer science before college in my small town in New Mexico. However, this benefitted me because I grew up recognizing the effects of a low education system. I observed immigrant students struggling in academics while working to support their families. I witnessed friends drop out of school because they couldn’t engage with subjects Taos High offered. I watched girls turn away from STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) topics because they didn’t believe they had the ability to pursue computer science or mathematics.

Doing debate alongside my own upbringing proved to me the lack of women and minorities in the STEM field. I, as an Asian woman, felt intimidated when I declared my major. According to Forbes, STEM majors are over 65% white and 83% male whereas nursing school (85% female) and higher education (79% female) are more promoted for girls. While minority groups are being increasingly integrated into the field, most products are still made by men, for men. The dominance of men especially in computer science and game development heavily impacts the resulting programs. People consume titles like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty that popularize violence and hegemonic masculinity, substance use, and sexualization of women. Individuals internalizing this gaming paradigm grow desensitized when war, drug use, and objectification occur in reality.

Debate taught me to discuss uncomfortable subjects and think critically about the themes present in modern video games. If I work in game development, I hope to expand engagement in social issues that exist in the real world. I could build butterfly-effect style games where decisions realistically impact consequences. In one play-through, a teenager might be given the option to steal from a store to feed siblings or let them go hungry – each path changes the fate of the character. In another play-through, a mother may wrestle with an abusive relationship that leads to an abortion and further psychological torment. Hopefully the classes that I'm taking at DU will be able to help me reach my goals. By designing games that don’t have clear moral paths, I can help people critically evaluate the world. Games today are visually stimulating and filled with epic fantasies but lack intersectionality and pragmatic judgment. My work will promote characters that embody feminist views or address realistic struggles. By taking classes at DU like game programming and 3d modeling, I can learn how to create games that will change people's mindsets. As a self-proclaimed steminist (feminist in STEM), I hope to one day transform the field I work in.